Sonnets on Separation II.
By Edward Shanks
The time is all so short. One week is much
To be without your deep and peaceful eyes,
Your soft and all-contenting cheek, the touch
Of well-caressing hands.O were we wise
We would not love too strongly, would not bind
Life into life so inextricably,
That the dumb body suffers with the mind
In a sad partnership this agony.
For death will come and swallow up us two,
You there, I here, and we shall lie apart,
Out of the houses and the woods we knew.
Then in the lonely grave, my dust-choked heart
Out of the dust will raise, if it can speak,
A threnody for this lost, lovely week.